UAB Synopsis, Vol. 24, No. 2, January 24, 2005
New Book Details Fascinating era
The University of Alabama Medical Alumni Association by Professor Emeritus Wayne Finley, MD, PhD, has just been published by NewSouth Books in Montgomery. The hardback is available from the association for $50. Proceeds will support the Medical Alumni Association.
The text details the School of Medicine's history, beginning with the 1859 founding of the Medical College of Alabama in Mobile. Four sections cover the Mobile school, the 2-year preclinical program in Tuscaloosa, the Birmingham Medical College, which existed from 1894 to 1915, and the current school. The book featurs an index of graduates of all programs and a review of Medical Alumni Association activities.
"This book is the only compilation of all medical program graduates," Dr. Finley says. "Throughout the years, the Medical Alumni Association has financially supported medical education and facility construction and promoted continuing medical education and development of a patient referral network."
Chronicle of state medical programs
The text chronicles events that led to growth of the public Alabama medical programs and the alumni association, beginning with the Mobile school's founding in 1859. The Civil War forced closure of the school in 1861; it reopened in 1868.
During most of its existence, a volunteer faculty provided instruction and state money was not forthcoming. Consequently, the school was unable to keep pace with the new emphasis on science and laboratory-based medicine. To improve its financial and academic standing in 1897, the Mobile program merged with the University of Alabama and changed its name to the Medical College of Alabama, Medical Department of the University of Alabama.
In 1919, despite efforts to bring the Mobile program into compliance with the 1910 Flexner Report recommendations, the American Medical Association's Council on Medical Education recommended that the university close the 4-year school in Mobile, confining its efforts to "undergraduate" medical education. Students finishing the 2-year basic science course in Tuscaloosa had to complete medical training out of state.
"From the time the school moved from Mobile to Tuscaloosa, University alumni, the Medical Association of the State of Alabama (MASA), and private citizens fought to re-establish a 4-year medical school in Alabama," Dr. Finley notes. This was accomplished in 1945 when the Medical College of Alabama moved from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham.
Back in 1927, the Southern Medical Association held a meeting at the Memphis Peabody Hotel. Most medical schools had alumni representation at this meeting. Realizing they had no representative association, 20 graduates of the Tuscaloosa program formed a medical alumni association," he says. At a 1928 MASA meeting in Mobile, the Alumni Association of the Medical Department of the University of Alabama was organized.
"The current Medical Alumni Association was founded in 1963 and includes graduates of the Medical College of Alabama (now the University of Alabama School of Medicine), the Medical College of Alabama in Mobile, the Birmingham Medical College, and the 2-year program in Tuscaloosa," Dr. Finley explains. "At that time, the association was set up with an office and staff, finally able to support the School of Medicine and its mission."